Hey friends,

My partner and I have a weird inside joke between us where I’ll use a nasally voice with ample vocal fry to say “when I studied at the University of Oxford,” in much the same way that Gretchen Weiners from Mean Girls says “my father, the inventor of Toaster Strudel.” 

Because let’s be real… starting a story by stating that you studied at Oxford lends itself to a certain sense of annoying self-righteousness. 

And yet, I want to tell you a little story from my time studying at the University of Oxford. 

There are many I could pick from, including everything from semi-unhinged classmates to sober lesbian bartenders to a falcon decapitating a pigeon in front of visiting dignitaries. Instead, what I want to focus on is something one of our professors– or tutors, as they referred to themselves– told us about her journey to becoming a scholar of Old English language and literature.